Rick Dickinson, the man responsible for the iconic Sinclair ZX80, ZX81, ZX Spectrum, and QL microcomputers’ chassis designs – and, yes, terrible keyboards – has passed away following unsuccessful specialist treatment for cancer in Texas. Regular readers will recall Rick being interviewed back in Issue 137, before his health took a turn for the worse. My impressions of him from that interview remain: a cheerful, friendly man who would happily sit and talk about almost anything with almost anyone – and one who, until a surprisingly late age, had absolutely no idea about his impact on so many lives.
‘It was our web designer, came in one day and he was wearing a Spectrum T-shirt. I thought, “God, where did he get that from,”’ Dickinson explained in our 2014 interview.…
